Beginning
with the agency reporting requirements for information supporting
the FY 1996 budget request, exhibits 43a, 43b, and 43c were replaced
with a single exhibit -- exhibit 43. In practical terms this means
that information technology budget obligations are reported for
the actual 1994 values in the new format. Agencies that obligated
more than $50 million in any of the years Past Year (PY), Current
Year (CY), or Budget Year (BY) for information technology activities
were required to submit a report in the format of exhibit 43 on
obligations for information technology for the agency as a whole
as opposed to the older exhibit 43 which required submission from
any agency which a) required obligations that exceeded $25 million
over the information systems life cycle, or b) exceeded $10 million
in any one year. The section within the old exhibit 43 specifying
definitions, section 43.2, was replaced with a reference to section
111 of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949
(40 U.S.C. 759) and applicable GSA regulations (41 CFR chapter 21).
Dollar amounts presented in the new exhibit 43 are shown in millions
of dollars as opposed to the older exhibit 43 which had figures
in thousands of dollars. The due date for the submission of exhibit
43 was moved from the dual submissions in FY 1995 to a single submission
following the President's submission of the budget. The section
of the older exhibit 43 specifying materials required to be submitted
was redacted and the format of the report was simplified in the
new exhibit 43. The new exhibit 43 added a section stressing thoughtful
analysis for investment in information systems, section (b).

Materials
required to support the FY 1996 budget request are the first to
use the new format for exhibit 43. This format divides the IT budget
into 9 categories, provides a summary figure, and totals for work
years. The Equipment category is divided into two
components; capital purchases and other equipment purchases/leases.
The Software category is likewise divided into
two components; capital purchases and other software
purchases/leases. The remainder of the categories; Services,
Support Services, Supplies, Personnel, Intra­governmental Payments,
and Intra­governmental Collections, are
not divided into components. One additional category, Other
(DoD use only) has two components, capital purchases
and other purchases.

There
has been some confusion over what should be included in Intra­governmental
payments, Intra­governmental collections, Services, and
Support Services. Agency difficulties in accounting
and reporting for intra­governmental payments and collections,
as well as potential differences in agencies' identification of
intra­governmental IT costs, result in a substantial gap between
reported intra­governmental payments and reported intra­governmental
collections. The discrepancy between the intra­governmental
payments and collections has gotten so severe at this time that
OMB has decided to make the assumption that the sum of the payments
and collections in theory should be equal to zero. For this reason
this year's report contains government­wide totals without
including the intra­governmental transfers.

As
a result of the increase in required obligation level, 21 fewer
agencies submitted exhibit 43 to OMB in the materials required to
support the FY 1996 budget request than for the FY 1995 budget request.

Historical
Changes. Beginning with the materials required to support the
FY 1991 budget request, the reporting threshold for the old version
of Exhibit 43 was raised to $2.0 million (from $1.0 million) for
any one year. As a result, ten small agencies no longer had to report
this data. In the materials required to support the FY 1990 budget
request, the sum of these ten agencies' requests equaled $14 million.
Moreover, due to the organization changes brought on by the Financial
Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989, there
was no report for the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) in its
old or reconstituted form. In the materials required to support
the FY 1990 budget request, FHLBB had requested spending of $14
million.

In
materials required to support the FY 1990 budget request, the Department
of Defense (DoD) reports changed from previous years. The Conference
Report accompanying the FY 1990 DoD appropriations capped DoD spending
on Automated Data Processing (ADP) through Operations and Maintenance
accounts. Complying with the report, DoD reexamined its definitions
for spending on "ADP equipment" and discovered its reported spending
was understated by nearly $650 million. Since then, DoD has consistently
applied the corrected definitions.

The
operating budget estimates are based on total expenditures for purchases
of goods and services by the Federal sector, as published in the
Special Analysis of "Federal Transactions in the National Income
and Product Accounts" (NIPA) or as promulgated by OMB's Budget Analysis
and Systems Division.(10) It should
be noted that this total includes some agencies such as the United
States Postal Service and the ten small agencies that are not included
in the totals for IT spending. OMB no longer publishes the agency­specific
NIPA data that makes up the totals for the Federal operating budget
in the NIPA. As a result, the total Federal operating budget has
been used for all fiscal years reported.

10.
National Income and Product Account Presentation, pages 267­270,
Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 1996 --
Analytic Perspectives and OMB Budget Analysis and Systems Division.